


Of Paradise’ existence

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lullabies, Post-Series, Romance, Singing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-02 05:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10210532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Simply wishing couldn't make it true but she couldn't stop herself.





	1. Chapter 1

Why hadn’t she died? Why must she wake from the comfort the night had brought? She had begun to pray for it, to slip away between her dreams, for one might be the greatest consolation and the next the most vile terror. And even worse was to open her eyes to a day filled with pain, empty hours and such loneliness, unable to think as she wanted, to read, to do anything but watch the corners of the room and wonder which wraith would come if any. There had been some relief with her arrival, the suffering of the journey ended and a certain peace to be had in the clean bed, the end of noise and jostling, but it had been ephemeral as everything was since she left him, left Alexandria where reality had stayed behind on a crowded dock; the water had interceded and there was no returning. 

He had said he would come but there had been no letter from him to announce his intentions, not even anything she could construe as a sign—a flash of blue like the silk cravat he favored, the Tennyson falling open to the lines of the poem he had recited with her, the light flickering among the medicine bottles. Mary knew what she hoped and what was more likely, that having left his sphere, she had retreated within his mind to a memory, overlaid by the clamoring present, her every flaw and deficit now more pronounced, her few charms diminished. Whatever she had been to him was not what he had meant to her. She had written him a letter she had kept. It was brief and direct and she was cognizant he would only read it when she was gone; it would finish the story between them in a way to offer him a respite from any guilt. She began the letter to Mansion House’s staff herself but had had to ask Aunt Agnes to finish it when her hand tired and shook on the page. She knew she had spent herself on the first message that had taken all her love to commit to the paper, to find the words to care for him as he would want and only that. Agnes had urged her to send it but it wouldn’t do; he had not come before and she could not bear to think he would if only he was reminded, or even worse, that reading the letter, he would not respond at all. 

It was what she wanted most—for him to come to her, to finally speak without any reservation, to pick up her hand in his and she had dreamt it all through the night. She would not open her eyes yet to the daylight and the end of it. She saw him in the doorway, that excess of energy he often had bright around him but he had paused, seeming to belong entirely within the frame, within her room with its green walls and the lamp lit beside the bed. Agnes had been there, murmuring something at him and he had made a familiar, exasperated exclamation before he was beside her, talking about his own letters and hers and how he would not leave her. His dark eyes were just as she remembered them, warm and observing her with the utmost intensity, and the sound of his voice reading Lincoln’s decree, the gospel she had waited for, told her he understood it now, in some way he hadn’t before. She had not taught him that—it must be Samuel, the best man of her acquaintance, though not the dearest. It had been compellingly real, how he sat on the bed, blocking the light with his shoulders, his hand at her wrist professional for an instant before he stroked her pulse where it beat. He had never looked so tired before when she dreamt of him, the silver at his temples, in his beard more prominent than she recalled; his cuffs were grey with cinders. Time wandered, as it did in the night, dancing away from her gaily and sidling back like Plum in search of her dish of milk. She felt him brush his lips against her hand, the silky prickle of his whiskers against her knuckles—he must have held her hand to his cheek. She remembered asking him to sing to her and his startled laugh, his bemused demand for an explanation _Surely not—why?_

“I want to hear your voice,” she’d said and interrupted him when he would demur, “You have a lovely voice, I know that. I’ve heard you, when you forget yourself--please, won’t you…just a little while, before you go?”

He had shaken his head as if he would contradict her, then said, “What shall I sing?”

“Anything,” she’d replied and he had heard the fretfulness in her tone and cleared his voice, then sung “Molly dear, I cannot linger,/Let me soon begone…” in the baritone she recalled from the operating room, the back veranda, that once must have graced a parlor and a piano draped in a yellow silk shawl. The image held no bitterness as he sang the name she’d often been called, over and over, _Molly, Molly dear_ , touching her lightly—her hand, her cheek, the chestnut hair that would not stay in the loose plaits Agnes wove. When he finished, he began again, a Scotch air, then a spiritual he must have learned as a child, the lullaby his mammy liked best. His voice was softer then, less precise, and she had not tried to stop herself when he finished.

“I’m sorry. You never let me say it and I want to, to tell you how sorry I am for what I said that night…And also, that I love you, I want to say it once, before you go away, before this is all over,” she’d told him. The hand that held hers had tightened but he hadn’t hurt her.

“God, Mary! I won’t—I told you, I promise you, love, I won’t leave, I’ll never,” he’d broken off and she had waited before she replied.

“But you will, you do, every night. S’all right, I understand, tired now,” and had felt his hand move to stroke her hair, the most pleasurable peace falling upon her. He hummed, a song without words, and the dream had unwoven itself into the night. And now she did not want to let the last threads come apart under the scrutiny of the sun and lay very still in the bed, knowing she would fail.

Aunt Agnes was a terrible nurse. She would chafe Mary’s hands to wake her after a night of fever and racking cough and then insist she try to sleep again. She lectured when Mary wept, served the tea scalding or let it cool to a stewed mess Mary could not choke down. Her chief attribute was that she was not Mary’s sister Caroline, mistress of the house, who had taken her little boys to her mother-in-law’s in Worcester when Mary begged her to, and that Agnes was not much troubled by the vagaries of illness. It was not like her to come so quietly into the room, to stand beside the bed for long moments before she called Mary’s name, to find the hand that lay amid the tousled bedclothes and only hold it. Mary opened her eyes and found a miracle.

“Jedediah?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” he said and it was not a dream, not this, not Jed in fresh linen but his cravat tied a little haphazardly, brushed and neat except that his hair needed trimming. 

“You’re here,” she said. It sounded stupid and clumsy to her, her voice husky after the night, no greeting offered, no polite inquiry. He smiled gently.

“Yes. I told you I would be, but I know, I understand why you didn’t believe me,” he said. There was a faint echo of the anguish of the night, when he had cried God, Mary! but with the day, he seemed determined not to distress her with any accusation.

“I told your Aunt Agnes to let me see to you this morning. I have broth here and tea,” he added, offering her the china cup from the bedside table, then shifting so he could hold it to her lips to drink when she could not keep her hand from shaking when she reached out for it. “That’s right, a little more now,” he cajoled, a fair imitation of how she and Anne Hastings entreated the men but with such a singular fondness in his expression. “I know it’s bitter, but that’s the willow bark. You’re warm, I don’t want the fever to rise,” he said, tipping the cup again very carefully so she might drink it all. 

“Last night, I thought I’d dreamt it again…but you, it’s real, you said you would stay until I’m well,” she said, moving uneasily, shivering a little. Her hips ached and her back but the chill was from tempting fate and for the word until, that meant not always.

“It’s real. I’m real, all of it. You should never have had to wonder, I’m so terribly sorry for that and for everything else…I should never have let him, let you go, I should have come right away and then perhaps, you wouldn’t be so ill, so dangerously ill. At Mansion House, after the first few days, you were recovering, but then, the journey and now this calomel and there is a bottle of blue mass as well, as if they can’t decide, American physicians loved their purgatives too well,” he trailed off, reaching over to press a damp cloth against her face. She sighed at the sensation, looked up to see him regarding her with a sad yearning she didn’t recall from him the night before.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, as if he had not just listed all his worries, his guilt; there must be something else for that look that pushed away the gladness there had been when he arrived. She could not bring herself to ask the other question, about when he planned to leave, not when she had just found him again.

“You didn’t expect me to come but you were waiting for me, weren’t you? For what… to say goodbye? To decide to live? You said, you dreamt of me and your aunt mentioned a letter, but you didn’t send one. You didn’t send for me,” he said.

“I don’t know. Only that I didn’t want to go without you, but I didn’t think…” she said.

“You didn’t think I’d come,” he supplied and for him to say it aloud made it the truth in a way it hadn’t been before. She heard how he knew her hurt and how it hurt him to know it.

“I was afraid,” she murmured. His hand was against her cheek, cool from holding the cloth, tender, distantly exciting as he stroked his thumb across her cheekbone, and his dark eyes gazing at her…

“You’ve waited too long for me. That’s done. You won’t wait for anything if I can help it. I love you, Mary. With all that I am, all that I ought to be, I love you and I will not leave you, I will nurse you myself and be your physician,” Jed said. It was a confession and a promise, solemn and firm and filled with a restrained passion he’d decided was all she could bear. 

“Oh,” she said, only that and saw his lips curve in the smile that was all there would be in place of a kiss.

“Oh, yes, my Mary. I hope you’ll like it, my nursing,” he said, unbothered she hadn’t returned his sentiments. She needn’t, she supposed, having told him in the night and in so many other words, so many ways he must know. His hand was warm now against her face and she felt his strength like the sun light, sustenance she had starved for.

“Won’t that be very dull for you?” It was a poor version of her former teasing but it was what she could manage and she saw he approved it and her effort. He pushed back a loose curl from her cheek.

“I don’t see how. I myself am not dull nor have you ever been and even if we prove that assertion wrong, I’ve seen there is quite a library here to liven us both,” he said, sitting back a bit. And now, seeing him so easy in the chair, so handsome, so wonderfully present, she found herself asking,

“And how long—how long may you stay? Aren’t you missed?” 

“The furlough is two weeks and Hale has Samuel to help him. And, I suspect there are plans afoot to remove some…impediments to the hospital’s efficiency. But that is not taking away the wrinkle in your brow,” he said.

“You said ‘until,’ you’d stay _until_ I was well. Then you’ll go away,” she replied. Mary felt the tears filling her eyes, the tight burning in her throat, the heaviness in her chest that was not the illness, but heartbreak.

“Not without you, not again. I hope, I think with God’s blessing, I may get you well enough to bear the travel. I thought to bring you back, to bring you home,” he explained.

“Home…” What he had conveyed with that one precious word! There was no medicine like it, nothing that gave the same sense of tranquility and joy, that met every need and then exceeded each one, all sweetness without any bitter.

“Alexandria, but not Mansion House, I’m afraid. Miss Green has taken your room you know. But there are other houses that would be suitable and I expect my own decree of emancipation very soon, if you would have me,” he said, keeping his tone light, while his eyes were earnest. She wished for her old vitality, to throw her arms around him, to give him the kiss they deserved to share. She was slow with the illness and weak, overwhelmed by what he said, stunned by how her happiness was independent of her strength.

“It’s a very poor proposal, I’m afraid. I wish it was better, that I could offer you more,” he said and was startled when she laughed, for the first time in weeks.

“It’s everything, it’s all I wanted,” she said.

“Then I am glad, glad I spoke, and sorry that you should want so little for yourself. My circumstances are not what they were, but there will be more, Mary, Molly, you have me body and soul. I know I must save my kisses until you are well but now, won’t you take some broth, to please me? It should be cool enough,” he replied. She nodded and struggled to sit up, then relaxed as he put an arm around her to help, grazing her temple with his lips.

“I don’t think this would pass muster with Miss Dix or Miss Hastings, your nursing, that is,” she said, leaning against him before he could reach for the bowl with its lolling silver spoon. He chuckled. 

“Well, it’s fortunate then that I’m a doctor. When you finish this, you can rest again. I can see you are getting tired. I’ll be here when you wake up,” he said. She did and he was, right beside her, drowsy himself while the sun filled all the room and she realized she couldn’t remember her dream and didn’t have to.


	2. Chapter 2

“I appreciate it, Jedediah, truly I do, but you needn’t stay sequestered in this room with me all day and night,” Mary said, hoping she had sounded enough like her old self, the Head Nurse who brooked no nonsense, to convince him. 

After the first day, when he had had to remind her that he was not a dream nor a hallucination, with his words, reassuring and logical and very nearly exasperated (though she thought that was more towards himself than her) and his frequent, gentle touch, they had found themselves in an unknown country, versions of themselves they were unfamiliar with. Jed had never spent so much time in her bedroom alone with her; at the hospital, there had been a nurse or a nun present or just about to be, the sound of footsteps approaching always suggesting some modicum of decorum, and though she had known he was Jedediah, he had easily been Dr. Foster with the wards below, sometimes his apron still pinned to his coat. Now, there were the empty rooms of a house designed for a family all around them, a seductive fantasy that Caroline’s house was their own, the basket of knitting in the blue parlor Mary’s, the embroidered hassock near the leather chair Jed’s favorite. Aunt Agnes moved through the house comfortably but was happy to let Jed take on the majority of the care Mary needed, pleased that letter or no, she’d had her way. That meant it was Jed who brought Mary hot tea and honeyed tisanes and held the cup to her lips, who checked her fever with a hand laid across her brow and cajoled her to take more broth, more milk-pudding and barley-water, who read to her through the warm afternoons, straightening the counterpane with a shockingly husbandly pat to her leg beneath the covers. She didn’t know how he occupied himself while she slept but he was always there when she woke, with a smile she had quickly grown accustomed to, a fond remark, “Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakens and not before time!” prefacing his next inquiry about how she felt.

It was a queer courtship, she supposed, but she’d never had one that wasn’t; Gustav had wooed her with chemical formulae and Schiller she struggled to comprehend, a curious formality when they went among others and an even more curious intimacy when they sat in her brother’s parlor and she poured out the tea, stopped from the first by his hand on her wrist. Once, her mathematics tutor had given her the page torn from his precious Euclid, inscribed “To M, In place of jewels” and she’d slept with it under her pillow and folded it away when he took another position in Hartford, “too far for someone so poor to hold out any hope, my Hypatia.” Jedediah nursing her, inveighing against Hale in his old way to make her chuckle and regaling her with Samuel’s clever inventions, Emma’s surprising dexterity with retractors and ripostes, while she lay in her bed in her nightdress, was not so unusual. But there were times when they became uneasy with their companionship, when she heard him bite back the offer to help her into a fresh gown, when he called her _Molly love_ without thinking and she answered to it, when she chose not to ask about McBurney, the length of the furlough he’d been granted and what awaited Jed in Virginia, what had come of his reunion with his mother. Neither of them spoke again of his marriage and she wondered sometimes that she could fear that discussion more than the death she had expected. She despised herself for doubting him, doubting that the proposal he’d made, that it could come to pass and that he should still want it to, having never returned to the subject. She didn’t know who she was to him anymore and she found herself wishing for more clarity, the security of a formal betrothal, whatever that meant for a widow and a man still married, as she regained her strength with his expert care and intuitive, constant tenderness. Was it her illness that made her so needy or something else, some aspect of herself heretofore unrevealed, that she must take the measure of before she could master it?

He seemed to suffer similarly, pleased she was recovering but uncertain about what was expected, desired, forbidden and she saw the signs that he was growing fretful with it. As well, he was a healthy man, away from the unrelenting demands of an entire hospital, being fed wholesome, hearty meals by Aunt Agnes and Caroline’s excellent housekeeper Mrs. Bartlett, and sitting for hours would soon make him ill as she tried not to be. She knew she could not force herself to match him without courting a relapse but she also knew he needed to be cared for, just as she did. And he’d given her the idea during a nostalgic conversation about his travels, musing on what the future could hold for Samuel, Jed’s own medical training and what the view from her window recalled to him.

“You might call on your friend Dr. Harris or even visit the university. It’s a lovely day for a carriage ride or a walk,” she suggested, not missing the way his expression changed; he liked the idea and he was even more pleased that she was enough herself to have issued the instruction, but there was some anxiety in his look, not only his quick professional assessment that shifted imperceptibly to Jedediah examining Molly.

“I don’t know. If I’m away, I don’t want you troubled by anything, wanting something and I’m not here,” he said. He didn’t know how much more it meant to her that he was here now than that he had not kept her from the steamship, how she counted what he had done so much more than what he had not, every word and gesture, the songs he sang her at night without being asked, the kiss at her temple with its accompanying glance at her lips .

“I’ll know, if you’re not here, you’re coming back. I know that, I do. And perhaps, you might do me a little favor when you are out,” she said, seeing she would need to give him a greater incentive, that her confidence in his return would not be enough in this moment though he would remember the words as he rode in the landau or walked on the cobbled streets.

“You’ve only to ask, Molly love,” he replied quickly. Did he blush as he heard himself? His color was so much better now and it was a warm day, but she thought it was not only that…What did he imagine she would request?

“I know I’m not ready to go outside, but some flowers would brighten the room, remind me of what’s waiting,” she said.

“I’ll get you a garden’s worth,” he declared and she laughed to imagine him in the hired carriage, surrounded by blossoms of every color, an aster tucked jauntily behind the ear of the patient horse, the grin of the flower-seller suddenly rich. Jed laughed with her and took up her hand, kissing it softly, not letting it go.

“One nosegay is enough, Jedediah. And try to see your friend too,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But mind you listen to your aunt while I’m away. Which makes me wonder—what’s her favorite flower? As long as I’m getting one bouquet, I think two is not very extravagant.”

“You can’t go wrong with roses. Now be off with you so I may get to missing you, just a little,” she replied, striving to coquette despite their circumstance, to see how he liked it, letting herself be Molly for him, admitting to herself alone who she meant to be, Molly Foster.


	3. Chapter 3

“Jed, I know you came to visit an old friend and I make be overstepping, but have you thought, have you really thought about what you are doing?” Jonathan said with his usual precise care but there was something else in his tone, some quality of criticism, castigation, that stung and Jed couldn’t keep from snapping,

“Saving her life, damn it!”

“Jed, please, remember—it’s me, Jonathan. I know you, even if I don’t know your Mrs. von Olnhausen,” Jonathan replied. Jed interrupted,

“Baroness. She’s the Baroness von Olnhausen.”

“Your Baroness, then. You must admit, what you’ve told me, it’s hardly…the standard. Society doesn’t judge as a physician might, as a friend would. You’re living in her house, the only one caring for her, still married—but that state is temporary. Jed, you have to understand, you don’t know everything. And you don’t know Boston,” Jonathan went on, not distressed by Jed’s scowl, his interruptions. His friend might be said by some to be phlegmatic but only by those who did not know he knew; rather, he had the impersonal calm of the ocean, except for those closest to him. Jed knew he was counted in that number and paused, thought of Mary, Molly, waiting for him in that green room, probably drowsy but slightly less pale since he’d poured out every bottle of calomel.

“Tell me then, what I ought to know,” Jed replied. He kept the edge from his voice and saw Jonathan nod.

“Boston is still the home of Puritans. Calvinists. There is no so much…latitude as you might find in New York. In Baltimore, I know you would be familiar with what is acceptable and furthermore, you and your family are known there, wealthy and well-respected as plantation owners. You will not find so many here who admire the source of your wealth—other than your medical practice, of course! You are a Union officer, there is that, but you are a Marylander, born and bred and here that counts for nothing,” Jonathan said.

“Is that all?” Jed retorted, startled, angered by his friend’s unflinching assessment.

“No, it’s not. You are a married man living alone with a widow. That you will shortly be a divorced man is hardly an improvement. Your intentions may be honorable,” Jonathan began but Jed could not help interrupting,

“May? I have fallen so low in your estimation then?”

“I mean to say you can hardly announce an engagement while you are married to Mrs. Foster and if you did, it would not be appropriate for you to be living alone with your betrothed.”

“We are not alone—her aunt is there. She was the one caring for Mary, for the Baroness, before I arrived,” Jed replied.

“It may be enough…she is a widow you said, your Baroness, and her family here, the…” Jonathan said, pausing for Jed to supply the surname,

“Her sister is Mrs. Lewis Cabot,” Jed offered. “Her Aunt Agnes is a maternal relative, a Phinney.”

“A lesser branch of the Cabot family—that should provide some protection but within the family, I shouldn’t think they’ll look too highly upon you. But the name and the family’s reputation should be enough for the Baroness’s position to remain adequately secure—if there are no other causes for society’s censure,” Jonathan said.

“Just say it, whatever you mean,” Jed answered.

“I think, if you’ll allow me, I should assume the management of Baroness von Olnhausen’s medical care. Your furlough cannot be very long, another week or so. I can’t imagine you mean to add deserter to your list of accolades, thus you must return to Virginia. Until then, if you could remove to another residence?”

“No! I promised her I wouldn’t leave her—and I won’t. I don’t care what that might mean to the matrons of Boston. I only care that Mary should know I am there, whenever she needs me. I should never have let her go before, I was weak, wrong-- I won’t do so again.”

“Then, at least behave like a guest in the house and not her husband or her lover. Don’t tend her by yourself. Keep her aunt about as a chaperone, have her minister come by to pay a call—with his wife. Think, Jed! A man may founder and rise again through his profession but a woman’s virtue is more fragile, with fewer ways to repair any damage,” Jonathan said. Jed nodded at his friend’s sensible advice, imagining how Mary might have railed at the injustice of it being necessary even as she accommodated it.

“All right. Whatever is best for her, I’ll do. Will you come to see her today?” Jed asked.

“I thought perhaps tomorrow, if you think she can wait,” Jonathan said.

“I wouldn’t have left her for a quarter-hour if I was that concerned. I think it’s the calomel that’s made her suffer so,” Jed replied.

“What will you do when you leave for Virginia?” Jonathan said. It was the question Jed had asked himself since that first night when she had moaned through the night and begged him to sing to her, since the morning she had woken to find he was not a dream or a delusion, her hand on his wrist as he held the cup to her lips. If the War would only end, if the telegram would come from California and find its way direct to Boston!

“I will take her with me,” he said simply.

“And if she is not well enough?” his friend inquired, stating without any obfuscation the doubt that had beset Jed in the dark blue hours before dawn.

“She will be, the calomel…” he tried. Who did he mean to convince?

“Jed. It may not be the cause of the relapse. There are no guarantees, you know that. Maybe better than I do,” Jonathan said.

“I will take her with me. When she left Alexandria, she was delirious, thrust out alone into the night with a strange nurse to supervise her, no medicine, nothing she needed, treated so terribly though she didn’t deserve it…and she survived it. I would take such good care of her, she wouldn’t lack for anything, any attention,” Jed said, envisioning the trip. 

If his arm around her was not enough, he would carry her himself, let her rest when she would, reminding her he was beside her every moment. His black bag would hold tonics to revive her and a basket from her aunt such delicacies as might tempt her. Already, she seemed stronger, her mind clear again…and when they arrived in the occupied city, he would not risk McBurney having anything to do with her. He would find her a room in a hotel if he did not have a house rented via his telegrams to Alexandria and he would speak to Miss Jenkins about a likely girl who could be paid to watch over Mary and benefit from the company of a kind Abolitionist. He thought of Julia but he would have to discuss her with Mary first, the connection and the baby girl whose cries might wake Mary when she needed to sleep. He thought of Mary in a rocking chair by an open window, her lap covered with the folds of a fine woolen shawl, the fresh air and light healing her until he could return every day to nurse her, coddle her until she laughed at him and he might kiss that low, delighted chuckle away.

“You love her very much,” Jonathan said quietly. 

There was appraisal in that glance but it was not cruel or critical now. Jonathan did not judge him for that Mary was not his wife, that he had never spoken of Eliza to Jonathan in the same way, that in the midst of a War that might destroy their country, Jed had allowed himself to fall in love even if it compromised his duty. Jonathan didn’t know Mary, so he could not understand how Jed’s affection for her could make him only a better version of the man he had been. He would know when he met her and already, the hour was growing late. She was waiting and she had asked for flowers, roses though she said they were for her aunt. 

“Yes,” he said.

“Does she know? How much?” 

“I think she does,” Jed replied, seeing her face as he sang to her _Molly, Molly dear_ , recalling the feeling of her hand in his, reaching for his cheek, her lips on the edge of the china cup as he fed her and then stroked her full lower lip with his thumb where it was wet with the honeyed tea.

“Make sure. However you must. And soon. I suspect it will go the furthest in helping her regain her strength and you will not be so irritable when I call,” his friend said with a smile that brooked no dissent. If he left now, Jed knew there would be time to find a jeweler, a ring set with a brilliant-cut sapphire, circled by diamonds, and two bouquets of roses, time to hand Agnes her nosegay and then bid her wait below, to open Mary’s door and ask a well-worded question of Molly.

**Author's Note:**

> An anonymous request on Tumblr for "something after that last scene" led to this story. I tried to post it last night, in light of the news that the show was cancelled, but AO3 seemed to eat it. 
> 
> Jed sings a Stephen Foster song, not because they share the same surname, but because Stephen Foster was a hugely popular song-writer of the period. I picked the song with the name "Molly" that did not have Molly dying (Molly is a nickname for Mary). I also tried to resolve to some degree the issue of what Jed mean when he said he would "not leave until you get well" given that he must have a furlough of a specific duration and Antietam happened about a week ago. Calomel and blue mass were popular medicines designed to make the patient empty their bowels-- the chief ingredient was mercury in both and thus, they were both poison. I am attributing Mary's "relapse" to their use and thus, Jed's optimism he can treat her enough to get her stable for a trip back to VA.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
